As we are quickly approaching to the next milestone of Letters from Nowhere we decided to give you a heads up about the game and its development process.
Primarily, Letters from Nowhere is our third hidden object game after
Romance of Rome and
Golden Trails: The New Western Rush. So you can see that this genre of games isn’t a new territory for Awem.
The idea of creating
Letters from Nowhere sprung when our designer watched
P.S. I love You, a drama based on novel of the same name by Cecelia Ahern. He thought what if we could use letters as guidance for the player to discover the truth. After the initial concept was approved, we went on infusing captivating story with mysterious letters into a hidden object game. We wanted our game to be more detective rather than its dramatic inspirer and therefore staked on letters which would send the player on a new adventure.
Late 80’s as the game’s setting was carried unanimously by our development team. We wanted to touch the feelings of the primary audience that loves to play casual games. We think that older generation will have interest in the "good old days" when everybody used paper letters with postage stamps on them.
The first variant of the Main Menu was good but it didn’t plunge the player into the game’s mood and theme, so we changed it to more postal and mystic.
• Less story – more gameplay
When we started to craft the final story it took much iteration. Initially, we wanted the main character to keep a diary. We wanted the player to have an attachment to the main character. What happened to her would be a driving motivation for the player.
On the one hand, some of the players like to get immersed within a new game world. On the other hand, some of them skip past the entire story and want to focus on the gameplay.
After some discussions we fixed on the following: the story is not dialogues the player reads before entering a location and within the game but what he DOES in the game. That’s why we gave up the idea of in-game dialogues and additional characters.
We haven’t refused from the game story totally. We have it in the intro comics and brief letters on finding which the player uncovers some information and important clues on where to move further.
Letters were a great idea to keep the plot unfolding without revealing too much.
“I’ve worn out the beta version. Can’t wait for the full game,” – we read in a letter from one of our beta testers. “I’ve finished Cradle of Rome three times,” – said one of our fans on the forums. Yes, this takes place when the game has only one mode or, as it happened with Letters From Nowhere, when the beta was over and the player was anxious to see where all the clues led to.
Additional game modes increase the replayability and therefore add more fun and challenge to the player. We know it and we want you to enjoy the game as much as you can.
Alongside the main casual mode, where the player solves the clues in order to look for the items and moves on seeing new types of locations to explore, you can also unlock Unlimited Mode that will put you to the test even further.
• In search of atmosphere
We set out to create a detective hidden object game. Originally, we wanted to make a game based on investigation. Weird disappearance of one of the heroes would be the standpoint of the game. As we proceed, however, we realized that the game lost its continuity. We had over 33 locations and a game interface on hand but they hardly suited the mood and the style we wanted to create in our game. Fortunately we were at the beginning of the development so it wasn’t too late to make changes. So, the detective atmosphere gave way to mystic; all game locations were reviewed and ruthless thrown away those that didn’t fit the game’s mood.
Hunter’s house - location that didn’t enter the game.
Style has a lot to do here too. Initial locations were drawn by several artists and they lacked some unity. So the lead designer entrusted one artist with refining the whole locations.
In the next part of my diary I’ll tell more about the development process, describe the challenges we had with the game interface and bonuses. Stay tuned.
Read
Letters from Nowhere Developer’s Diary. Part II 
Haruka
